


Kimi no Kage (Your shadow)

by vogue91



Category: Love Shuffle
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Suicidal Thoughts, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 21:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14090382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: “Cut it.” he hissed. “It’s just you and me in this room. No one else. Have I been clear?”





	Kimi no Kage (Your shadow)

Sera Ojiro had always thought of himself as a rational man.

He always tried to get the best out of every situation, to take advantage of everything life offered him, to have fun without thinking about the future.

He had never let prejudices or fear hinder him.

Until then.

He didn’t know what had gotten into him that morning; he just knew that seeing those pictures had done more than freak him out.

He was scared to death, it had made him feel like running away and never see Kairi again.

Thinking about that with a clear mind, he told himself his reaction had been excessive; but as excessive as it was, he couldn’t take those pictures off his mind, that shadow, that feeling of confusion, of not understanding what was happening.

He wanted to understand, finding a rational explanation, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t help but thinking that what he knew about Kairi brought him toward the grotesque, the hallucinating, the incredible.

Thanatos.

No, it definitely wasn’t possible.

Or, at least, that’s what he kept repeating himself.

Then, when he had come back home that night and had found her waiting for him, his confusion had grown.

He was struggling; on one hand, he wished he could’ve asked her in, he felt sorry for her, there in the coldness, waiting for him to come back. On the other, when he looked at her his imagination ran, he kept seeing that shadow around her, and he thought that in front of him there wasn’t her alone, as if she was dragging around something that his bare eyes couldn’t see.

The fear remained, but in the end her pitiful eyes won and he decided to let her in, not without doubts.

He went inside the apartment, taking off his jacket and going to the kitchen, glimpsing at the girl from time to time, checking what she was doing, that nothing weird happened.

Or, at least, nothing _too_ weird.

Kairi was still in the middle of the room, looking around as she often did when she got lost in her world, when that surrounded her disappeared, or didn’t matter.

Ojiro had always been certain it was just an act, a show to earn those attentions that she had always lacked.

And he still was decently persuaded that it was like that, but now he couldn’t help but doubt.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, harsher than usual. “Kairi, don’t do that, please. I’m definitely not in the mood.” he said, and he didn’t obtain an answer, just that gaze she usually put on that could barely resemble a smile.

Snorting, he went to the stove and started fixing something up for dinner. The girl followed him, this time never taking her eyes off of him.

Ojiro turned, staring nervously at her.

“You could also give me some room to breathe, you know? Don’t worry, I don’t have any secret passage in the kitchen; I couldn’t run even if I wanted to.”

Kairi tilted her head, looking mischievous, and then she moved her focus to a corner of the room.

Ojiro grabbed her shoulders, leaning in so that he could look straight in her eyes.

“Cut it.” he hissed. “It’s just you and me in this room. No one else. Have I been clear?” he said, shaking her lightly as to take any weird thought out of her head.

The girl chuckled briefly, then shrugged and wiggled out of his old, getting closer and pressing a kiss on his lips.

Ojiro pulled back, instinctively.

“Not that I don’t normally appreciate this kind of initiative but, believe me kid, right now I’d rather you’d talk to me instead of kissing me.”

Kairi pulled back, shaking her head.

“If you want me to tell you that it’s just you and me in this room, I’ll do it: it’s just you and me.” she said, with her usual voice, empty, mechanical.

Ojiro closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

He hated being made fun of.

He hated that look on the girl’s face, the one he couldn’t read, the one who always made him uncomfortable.

Because he had always been damn good at understanding women; he did as he pleased with them, he was capable of bringing them to tell him anything, he always knew what were the right chords to strike and what the wrong ones.

And it had always been like that, so much as to convince him that after all women were all the same; at least, until he had met her.

And that way of being completely out of any schemes made him want to go on, to persevere, to find out what was hiding beneath that apparently meaningless expression.

He was attracted by her, like he had never felt with any woman before.

And yet, at the same time, that sort of inadequacy he felt, the fact of having never dealt with someone like this before, terrified him more than the shadows on the damn pictures.

“I’ve done everything wrong with you, haven’t I? I was wrong acting with you like I would’ve done with anybody else, I’ve been wrong believing you were... _normal_. Because there’s nothing in you that could even vaguely seem normal.” he stopped, taking a deep breath. “I’ve been a fool playing by the rules with you. I should’ve imagined from the beginning that you would’ve given me a run for my money. I should’ve let you go.” he said, talking more to himself than her.

Kairi turned her back on his, and let her eyes wander throughout the room.

“Yet you’ve let me in today.” she replied. Ojiro brushed his face, exasperated.

“What, I should’ve left you there, alone and in the cold? Anything could’ve happened to you, and I didn’t want to have you on my conscience.” he said, the most bitter voice he could manage.

“Or maybe you’d care if something was to happen to me.” her tone had gotten more laconic but, even though he couldn’t see her, Ojiro knew that she was wearing one of those inappropriate smiles of hers, apparently meaningless; or that meant something only she could understand.

“I’ve learnt to live with the thought that something’s gonna happen to you. There’s not much time left and you’re going to die. Right? Is your mind still set? Or perhaps you’ve come to the conclusion that until there’s someone who gives you the right amount of attention living is not so bad?” he was sarcastic, as always when he talked about Kairi’s suicidal tendencies.

She turned around, and he could see that she was actually smiling.

She shrugged, staring at him.

“I’ve got no choice, you know that.”

Ojiro bit his tongue; he didn’t want to start that argument, already done a thousand times, because he knew that neither of them was going to change their minds. He got closer, resting a hand on her shoulder.

“What do you want from me?” he hissed, a few inches from her face.

“You.”

Ojiro had heard that same thing in a variety of situations, with voices that showed craving, lust, desire.

Said from Kairi instead, that simple syllable seemed different; it was like it was obvious what she wanted, as if he was nothing more than a whim, or something necessary to go on.

He kissed her, almost instinctively, for reason he couldn’t understand.

Because he didn’t want to listen to her anymore.

Because he wanted to feel her close, even though he knew it was going to hurt.

Because it was the right thing to do right now, because he was there for her, and she was there to reminding him that, after all, women are not all the same.

Because kissing her made him feel good, nothing more.

 

~

 

He looked at her sleeping.

She was so... pacific.

Her face was relaxed, there was no trace of her worries, of that imaginary world she had brought with herself far too long.

Watching her, right then, made him almost forget all the problems he would’ve had being with her, all the times he would’ve had to fight against her stubbornness, all the times he would’ve tried to understand her and fail.

He had been a fool playing by the rules, with her.

But he had always bragged about his perseverance, and he wasn’t going to give up just because she was like this, just because with her he could kiss goodbye to all the rules that had worked in the past with all the other women.

It was necessary to try something new, because Hayakawa Kairi wasn’t a game he was willing to give up on.


End file.
